Outbound Sales Guide: 7 Essential Outbound Sales Strategies

Outbound sales is a sales framework that involves connecting with potential customers through outreach, such as cold calls and emails. Typically, the contacts for outbound sales are identified through agencies that specialize in lead-developing services. A company can also generate their own leads through research or by tracking customer interactions.

Outbound sales strategies prompt potential buyers to consider products through direct outreach, while inbound sales strategies attempt to attract potential customers through longer-term strategies like content marketing, SEO, conferences, and webinars. In outbound sales, a salesperson from the business reaches out to the prospect, while in inbound sales, the prospect reaches out to the business.

Outbound sales strategies—which begin with sales representatives—are typically more aggressive and yield quick feedback, which shortens the sales cycle. An outbound sales strategy can save time by empowering the salesperson to research and identify a potential customer with purchasing power.

Consider these techniques for outbound prospecting:

1. 1. Use buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional person who represents a target market. The more detailed this persona is, the better, since most salespeople find it easier to connect with a hypothetical individual buyer than a generalized target market. Keep these buyer personas in mind when prospecting leads, crafting messaging, and developing sales tactics.
2. 2. Create an outbound sales script. Equip your outbound salespeople with a script detailing information about the product, answers to common questions, and key points. The script should allow for riffing and personalization.
3. 3. Work in stages. Most sales professionals work in stages to identify new leads, connect with leads, and to close deals with qualifying leads—which are leads that seem likely to buy. Depending on the size of your team, these stages of the sales process might be carried out by different team members with different specialties.
4. 4. Follow up. Follow up with a lead who has filled out a form or interacted with your brand's content—these leads as known as warm leads. Next, determine whether a warm lead might be a good fit for your product or service, have purchasing power, and seem likely to buy.
5. 5. Log activities. Customer relationship management (CRM) software can track communication between sales team members and leads, making it easier for teams to continue correspondence across different members.
6. 6. Use automation. Automated dialers are invaluable when it comes to cold calls. These systems go beyond click-to-dial contact information by offering local phone numbers—which prospects are more likely to answer calls from—and have the capability to leave pre-recorded voicemails. Cold emails can also be automated with templates and scheduling.
7. 7. Ask for referrals. After securing a purchase, ask your new customer if they know of anyone else who might be interested in your product. This is an easy way to generate new sales leads.

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